11/13/2017

More News about the Lack of Diversity in Canadian Philosophy Departments and Universities

In the metaphilosophical sphere of my forthcoming book, I note that disabled philosophers make up less than 1 percent of full-time faculty in philosophy departments in Canada: a couple of years ago, I saw the results of a survey which reported that disabled philosophers make up approximately 1 percent of full-time philosophy faculty in Canada. In short, there are virtually no disabled philosophers employed in philosophy departments in Canada. There is no disabled philosopher of disability employed in a philosophy department in Canada. This state of affairs is unacceptable, especially given that disabled people make up an estimated 20 percent of the general population in Canada.

The homogeneity of Canadian philosophy departments and of Canadian universities more generally with respect to disability, race, and gender, in particular, is taken up in a number of articles that recently appeared in The Globe and Mail. One of the articles, which zeroed in on how lack of faculty diversity affects the prospects and career decisions of students, includes remarks by philosopher Chike Jeffers. Here is an excerpt from the article of October 18th:

When philosophy professor Chike Jeffers initially decided to pursue graduate studies, he had to move to the United States; Canada didn't offer him enough opportunities.

"When it came time to apply for graduate school, knowing that I wanted to do [philosophy], I didn't see where in Canada I could go," said Dr. Jeffers. "I didn't see where I could find people working on what I wanted to work on in terms of African philosophy and even philosophy of race, but especially in terms of my interest in philosophy as it relates to the black world."

Ultimately, the lack of representation in Canadian postsecondary academia led to Dr. Jeffers's decision to return home as soon as he earned his PhD.

"I was nearing my PhD and I was on the job market. I ended up getting two job offers that I was considering, one in the U.S. and one at Dalhousie," said Dr. Jeffers. "I wanted to make sure what was true for me, was not true for future students. I wanted to make it the case that there was at least one place in Canada that [students interested in philosophy of race] could go study at the graduate level."

On October 26th, The Globe and Mail reported that Canadian universities will collect and compile demographic data on faculty, staff, and students as part of a five-year strategy to increase the diversity and inclusion of campuses across the country. One of the problems that the strategy may ameliorate is the lack of diversity among holders of prestigious Canada Research Chairs (CRCs). As the article reports,

The promise to address under-representation of some groups in areas where it may occur, whether it's the lack of Indigenous students in professional faculties or women in leadership posts, comes as universities are discussing how to meet equity targets in the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program. By Dec. 15, institutions must show that they have created action plans to increase the diversity of candidates for the talent recruitment and retention program. Canada's research granting councils fund the CRC with $265-million for 1,600 top academics every year.

But schools have consistently failed to meet equity targets set by the program's steering committee. Academics with disabilities are particularly poorly represented among CRC holders. Should universities continue to miss their targets, they have been warned by the program's directors that they will see some of the funding for the program withheld.

Discussions on the five-year strategy have occurred separately from addressing the equity goals of the CRC program.

But the strategy will help universities appoint diverse Canada Research Chairs by working to increase the pool of candidates many years before they would be eligible for such prestigious positions, Dr. Mahon said.

"We are talking about broadening the pool not only at the undergraduate level, but even at junior high school and high-school level to encourage people to aspire to university," he said. "It's a reverse funnel where we begin to broaden out these pools starting in junior high school and moving all the way through."

Many of the other points of the five-year plan are aimed at removing hiring biases or encouraging academics from under-represented groups to try for leadership posts.

Comments

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Hi Shelley,

You write that "A couple of years ago, I saw the results of a survey which reported that disabled philosophers make up approximately .01 percent of full-time philosophy faculty in Canada." Does this require that there are at least 10,000 full-time philosophy faculty in Canada (since .01 percent is 1 in 10,000)? I wouldn't have thought that there are that many full-time philosophy faculty in Canada, so I'm wondering if there is possibly a mistake somewhere here. I'm also wondering if there are a significant number of people with disabilities, especially invisible disabilities, who aren't being counted in that statistic -- e.g. is it self-reported? -- but that's another issue.

the survey was conducted by the Equity Committee of the Canadian Philosophical Association. Although I saw it a couple of years ago, it had been conducted a couple of years before that time. The survey relied on the reporting of departments.

Thanks for the additional information. And I agree that .01 equals 1% or 1 in 100. But your post says ".01 percent," which equals .0001 or 1 in 10,000. So you might remove the word "percent" from ".01 percent."

I realize now how naive I am to think that the situation in my own department is reflected across the country. I work in a department of 15, with 3 disabled individuals, significantly more than the .01 figure for the nation, and definitely more than “virtually none”. (None of the department’s disabled individuals work in philosophy of disability.)

This does make me wonder how the .01 figure was obtained, so any additional information on this would be much appreciated. The problems pointed to in the post are serious ones, obviously, but I’m concerned that one of the problems not mentioned is that disability is so invisible to diversity initiatives that it may be under-counted. Disabled philosophers are here, and we count.

Ramona, as I indicated to Ben, a survey was conducted by the CPA Equity Committee. The survey included direct questions about the number of disabled faculty on department rosters.

I agree that disability is usually left out of diversity initiatives and reports about them. In the October 26 article, for instance, there is only one reference to the underrepresentation of disabled academics.

I'm afraid the fact that your department has 3 disabled faculty members is not representative of the situation in departments across the country. But the fact that your department does not have a disabled philosopher of disability is indeed representative of the current state of affairs in Canadian philosophy departments.

Thanks for that info, Shelley. I’m trying to find out more about how the CPA’s equity committee conducted their survey, which isn’t easy to do, but so far, it does look as though the results may not be as accurate as one might hope. In addition to the usual problem of response rate, results may have been skewed by the fact that only one respondent, e.g. a department Chair, may have been asked to respond on behalf of entire departments, and may thus have underreported. It’s also not clear which departments were surveyed, e.g. universities only, or were colleges included? Some community colleges have philosophy departments that are larger than some university departments, yet they are often omitted from such surveys. There are still far too few disabled philosophers in Canada, to be sure, but it makes sense to try to count as accurately as possible. Sorry my inquiry duplicated one of Ben’s questions! I was typing my comment while your discussion with him was posting.

thanks for your comment. I have mixed feelings about the idea that an accurate count is needed. In my view, even if 5% of philosophy faculty in Canada identified as disabled, that number is still far too low.

I am very concerned that there is no disabled philosopher of disability employed full-time in a Canadian department. For one thing, given the prominence of bioethics in some of the larger departments in Canada, many philosophy students will be taught only a medicalized conception of disability, especially on physician-assisted suicide, euthanasia, selective abortion and other topics that are considered standard fare for general bioethics courses. Some of these students will go on to be the next generation of philosophers. The fifth chapter of my book concentrates on bioethics, its political character, and how it operates to reproduce the underrepresentation of disabled philosophers and the marginalization of philosophy of disability.

I am very much looking forward to reading your book, especially chapter 5.

Numbers are indeed far too low so we are in agreement there, and I think I understand what you mean by mixed feelings. I wouldn’t argue for accurate numbers for their own sake, because as you rightly suggest, the difference between one per cent and five isn’t a big one when overall attention to and support for diversity is so weak. I would hope that we are too sophisticated, for example, to fall for the trick that says disabled philosophers have increased their numbers when it turns out that all we did was count differently (but as I conceded at the outset, I am naive).

My thought is more that the way in which disability is counted is also itself political, so that advocating for a more inclusive and rigorous approach to data-gathering must be part of a broader program of attention and support. Not to take a mere bean-counters approach to data gathering, but rather to emphasize that the political nature of philosophical thinking about disability includes a commitment to surveying methods that do not further marginalize disabled philosophers.

Ramona,
thank you for your enthusiasm about my book. That's very kind.
I agree that the way in which disability is "counted" is political and indeed the very fact that it is counted, that it is something to count, is "political."

I hope you enjoy my book and find its arguments compelling.
Thanks for your comments today,
Shelley